In the society in which she lived such plain statements produced the effect of the wittiest epigram.
Princess Myakaya could never see why it had that effect, but she knew it had, and took advantage of it.
As everyone had been listening while Princess Myakaya spoke, and so the conversation around the ambassador's wife had dropped, Princess Betsy tried to bring the whole party together, and turned to the ambassador's wife.
"Will you really not have tea?
You should come over here by us."
"No, we're very happy here," the ambassador's wife responded with a smile, and she went on with the conversation that had been begun.
"It was a very agreeable conversation.
They were criticizing the Karenins, husband and wife.
"Anna is quite changed since her stay in Moscow.
There's something strange about her," said her friend.
"The great change is that she brought back with her the shadow of Alexey Vronsky," said the ambassador's wife.
"Well, what of it?
There's a fable of Grimm's about a man without a shadow, a man who's lost his shadow.
And that's his punishment for something.
I never could understand how it was a punishment.
But a woman must dislike being without a shadow."
"Yes, but women with a shadow usually come to a bad end," said Anna's friend.
"Bad luck to your tongue!" said Princess Myakaya suddenly. "Madame Karenina's a splendid woman.
I don't like her husband, but I like her very much."
"Why don't you like her husband?
He's such a remarkable man," said the ambassador's wife. "My husband says there are few statesmen like him in Europe."
"And my husband tells me just the same, but I don't believe it," said Princess Myakaya. "If our husbands didn't talk to us, we should see the facts as they are. Alexey Alexandrovitch, to my thinking, is simply a fool.
I say it in a whisper...but doesn't it really make everything clear?
Before, when I was told to consider him clever, I kept looking for his ability, and thought myself a fool for not seeing it; but directly I said, _he's a fool,_ though only in a whisper, everything's explained, isn't it?"
"How spiteful you are today!"
"Not a bit.
I'd no other way out of it.
One of the two had to be a fool.
And, well, you know one can't say that of oneself."
"'No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is satisfied with his wit.'" The attache repeated the French saying.
"That's just it, just it," Princess Myakaya turned to him. "But the point is that I won't abandon Anna to your mercies.
She's so nice, so charming.
How can she help it if they're all in love with her, and follow her about like shadows?"
"Oh, I had no idea of blaming her for it," Anna's friend said in self-defense.
"If no one follows us about like a shadow, that's no proof that we've any right to blame her."
And having duly disposed of Anna's friend, the Princess Myakaya got up, and together with the ambassador's wife, joined the group at the table, where the conversation was dealing with the king of Prussia.
"What wicked gossip were you talking over there?" asked Betsy.
"About the Karenins.
The princess gave us a sketch of Alexey Alexandrovitch," said the ambassador's wife with a smile, as she sat down at the table.
"Pity we didn't hear it!" said Princess Betsy, glancing towards the door. "Ah, here you are at last!" she said, turning with a smile to Vronsky, as he came in.
Vronsky was not merely acquainted with all the persons whom he was meeting here; he saw them all every day; and so he came in with the quiet manner with which one enters a room full of people from whom one has only just parted.
"Where do I come from?" he said, in answer to a question from the ambassador's wife. "Well, there's no help for it, I must confess.
From the _opera bouffe_.
I do believe I've seen it a hundred times, and always with fresh enjoyment.
It's exquisite!
I know it's disgraceful, but I go to sleep at the opera, and I sit out the _opera bouffe_ to the last minute, and enjoy it.
This evening..."
He mentioned a French actress, and was going to tell something about her; but the ambassador's wife, with playful horror, cut him short.
"Please don't tell us about that horror."
"All right, I won't especially as everyone knows those horrors."